Meghan Thatcher ACF Abstract FY12

"Economic Development: The Changing Consensus"

The course of economic development has been greatly changing during the past decade. The failures of the so called Washington Consensus and the neoliberal policies of the Bretton Woods institutions and western countries were showcased through the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, the Argentinean Crisis of 2001, and most recently through the Financial Crisis of the late 2000s. These failures sent many developing nations to seek after their own solutions to development, and seemingly, the most successful emerging economies owe much of their success to their denial of these western policies and the adoption of their own forms of economic development based on their individual contexts. Particularly since the Seoul Development Consensus in 2010, the IMF and World Bank seem to be moving towards realizing there are different paths to success, and no one size-fits-all formula for economic growth and development. This can be most recently seen through the IMFs reaction towards the new budget created by the transitional government of Egypt. The West also needs to look to the developing world and grassroots ideas for economic growth and development such as micronance and the MicroConsignment Model, bringing more creativity and cooperation into their policies and mindset.